A typical menu and a dream location: live a 360 ° experience of Capri da Paolino.
The passion of the De Martino family leads to always offering new services to customers, from the bar to homemade ice cream.
If there is one thing of which our island is certainly not poor, it is the suggestive and picturesque places that have made it famous all over the world. From natural beauties, such as the splendid Blue Grotto or the famous Faraglioni of Capri, to places rich in history such as Villa Jovis or the Certosa di San Giacomo, passing through the suggestive alleys and squares of Capri. There are those who have been able to transform this peculiarity of Capri into a strength for their business, enhancing dream locations to offer tourists more than just a service, but a real “experience”.
This is the case of the Da Paolino restaurant, a historic Capri business run by the De Martino family with the same passion and genuineness since its inception: the “limoneto di Paolino” has in fact become one of the icons of the island over time, almost a a must for those passing through Capri.
Respect for tradition can be seen right from the proposed menu. The dishes are the original traditional ones, cooked since the beginning of the activity, when it was still a small tavern with a few tables that flanked the activity of the bowling green run by grandfather Paolino.
From Caprese ravioli with lemon, rigatoni with courgette flowers, lemon mozzarella to Michelina-style rabbit, cooked today only on request, with a recipe that is half grandmother and half Ischian; then arriving at the famous “bomba” by Paolino, a fried panzerotto stuffed with mozzarella and cooked ham. To reach, at the end of the meal, the traditional limoncello, which years ago was served hot, then, to satisfy the preferences of tourists who requested it with ice, the tradition has changed. It was the Da Paolino restaurant that has always offered it, offering it to customers as a digestive at the end of a meal.
Finally, the chapter of desserts is also very broad: the most requested are certainly the lemon delight, the caprese cake, the lemon caprese and the coconut balls.
The only occasions in which the menu deviates from tradition is in raw fish, with raw materials always strictly local or coming from Sicily, never from abroad, to which a chef is totally dedicated, as is the case for a department totally dedicated to gluten-free cuisine. However, even where the cuisine deviates from the Caprese tradition, the need to always seek quality products remains intact.
In fact, at the Da Paolino restaurant the product is chosen with particular attention to its genuineness; aubergines, peppers, potatoes, are just some of the 0 km ingredients used to prepare their tasty dishes. This is the case, for example, of the traditional eggplant parmigiana, or the heart of beef tomatoes served with burrata or buffalo mozzarella.
In short, the De Martino family is part of those families that, with their work, still carry on the history of Capri today, and offer tourists a genuine experience, beyond fashions and stereotypes that end up contaminating tradition.
And just around another traditional recipe, the squid with potatoes, revolves a funny anecdote that Paolino’s granddaughters wanted to tell us. Their grandfather at the time went fishing for squid to sell it, obviously taking part of it home for dinner; in the evenings, however, when it was late, to deceive the wait, the family began by cooking the potatoes, and only when the grandfather was back was the squid added… but the quantity of potatoes, in the end, was always greater, because the squid had to be sold!
This anecdote actually gives us the cross-section of a Capri which, while it seems distant to us, actually has very current echoes in our society: still today fishing is an important activity for the islanders and, contrary to the expectations we might have, many of those who practice it are young. Also for this reason, therefore, it is important to respect traditional dishes: to never forget one’s roots.
To complete such a rich menu, there can only be a carefully curated wine list, respecting the great regional variety we have in Italy. Over the years the restaurant da Paolino has been able to create a large cellar with about 500 labels, mainly of red wines and with an exhibition of white wines; the most represented regions are Campania, Tuscany, Alto Adige and Piedmont. Finally, the bar, new in recent years and recently expanded, which today represents a “business card” for customers, who entertain themselves after dinner or, vice versa, have an aperitif and then go to a restaurant.
The passion for this work of the De Martino family has grown stronger over the years, so much so that they always offer new services for their customers; and so for two years they have also been producing ice cream and ice cream cakes independently. The favorite flavors are Spanish, chocolate and, of course… those based on lemon, from sorbet to “Limone di paolino”, a lemon-flavored cream.
In short, a tradition that also returns in the novelties, to continue to offer tourists and island residents the pleasure of the original flavors of Capri.
